Singapore – Payment and digital commerce providers are exploring common approaches to identifying and verifying artificial intelligence agents as the technology becomes increasingly involved in transactions made on behalf of consumers.
Ant International, Mastercard and Visa have begun collaborating on a Know-Your-Agent (KYA) interoperability framework aimed at streamlining agent onboarding and identification across card networks, digital wallets, agent platforms and marketplaces.
The proposed framework would use shared principles while allowing participating networks to retain their own verification and decision-making processes. The initiative is intended to reduce duplication in agent identity checks while maintaining existing trust, security and risk controls.
AI agents are increasingly being developed to move beyond recommendations and complete purchases on behalf of users. The three organisations cited projections that AI agents could orchestrate between US$3 trillion and US$5 trillion in global consumer commerce by 2030.
The collaboration builds on separate agent-related protocols already introduced by the organisations: Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol, Mastercard Verifiable Intent and Ant International’s Agentic Mobile Protocol.
Under the proposed KYA approach, agents would be associated with a validated operator, cardholder or business to establish traceability for their activities. Agents would also be assessed against shared security and behavioural requirements, with ongoing monitoring using identity and transaction-related signals.
The organisations said a common approach could reduce integration complexity and duplicate verification processes for service providers, agent platforms and marketplaces, while providing greater visibility into trust and risk across participating networks.
The collaboration will take place through BuildFin.ai, an industry platform convened by the Monetary Authority of Singapore to bring together financial institutions, technology providers and researchers working on responsible AI applications for financial services.
The initiative builds on the Safeguards for Agentic Finance at Runtime (SAFR) framework and will initially focus on developing approaches to AI agent verification, accountability and risk management across payment ecosystems in Singapore.
“As AI agents become a bigger part of how people discover and buy, trust must scale with them,” said Rubail Birwadker, Global Head of Growth Products and Strategic Partnerships at Visa.
“Visa has played a leading role in creating the trust frameworks that make agentic commerce possible through the development of innovations such as Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol. Collaborations like this can help create more consistency, better accountability, and greater confidence across the payments ecosystem as AI-driven transactions become more common,” Birwadker continued.
“Interoperability across Know-Your-Agent frameworks is essential to making agentic commerce work at scale, giving merchants, platforms, wallets and issuers a consistent way to recognise trusted agents, verify that actions reflect the user’s intent, and preserve accountability across the transaction,” said Pablo Fourez, Chief Digital Officer of Mastercard.
“Mastercard Verifiable Intent was designed for this open ecosystem, helping ensure that as commerce becomes more autonomous, every interaction remains secure, transparent and grounded in consent,” Fourez continued.
“Interoperable KYA between card and wallet networks is critical for securing trust for our payment partners, platforms and merchants in agentic commerce,” said Jiang-Ming Yang, Chief Innovation Officer of Ant International.
“We look forward to expanding collaboration as the industry draws on richer signals — capabilities, behaviour, execution performance, and risk data — to enhance trust and simplify transactions for our clients and their customers.”
The companies said the work is intended to support the development of safeguards for AI-driven transactions, with agent identity, accountability and risk management becoming increasingly important as agentic commerce develops.
